Airborne Lidar Survey, Density-Based Clustering, and Ancient Maya Settlement in the Upper Usumacinta River Region of Mexico and Guatemala
| Autor: | Omar Alcover Firpi, G. Van Kollias, Charles Golden, Shanti Morell-Hart, Juan Carlos Fernandez Diaz, Alejandra Roche Recinos, Socorro del Pilar Jiménez Álvarez, Alexandra Bazarsky, Morgan Clark, Timothy Murtha, Bethany Whitlock, Whittaker Schroder, Mark R. Agostini, Mallory E. Matsumoto, Andrew K. Scherer, Joshua Schnell |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Mesoamerica
Science Drainage basin ancient agriculture Maya 0601 history and archaeology Rural settlement Transect population density lidar 060101 anthropology geography.geographical_feature_category 060102 archaeology Settlement (structural) density-based cluster analysis Subsistence agriculture Excavation archaeology 06 humanities and the arts 15. Life on land Archaeology Geography HDBSCAN General Earth and Planetary Sciences |
| Zdroj: | Remote Sensing, Vol 13, Iss 4109, p 4109 (2021) Remote Sensing; Volume 13; Issue 20; Pages: 4109 |
| ISSN: | 2072-4292 |
| Popis: | We present results from the archaeological analysis of 331 km2 of high-resolution airborne lidar data collected in the Upper Usumacinta River basin of Mexico and Guatemala. Multiple visualizations of the DEM and multi-spectral data from four lidar transects crossing the Classic period (AD 350–900) Maya kingdoms centered on the sites of Piedras Negras, La Mar, and Lacanja Tzeltal permitted the identification of ancient settlement and associated features of agricultural infrastructure. HDBSCAN (hierarchical density-based clustering of applications with noise) cluster analysis was applied to the distribution of ancient structures to define urban, peri-urban, sub-urban, and rural settlement zones. Interpretations of these remotely sensed data are informed by decades of ground-based archaeological survey and excavations, as well as a rich historical record drawn from inscribed stone monuments. Our results demonstrate that these neighboring kingdoms in three adjacent valleys exhibit divergent patterns of structure clustering and low-density urbanism, distributions of agricultural infrastructure, and economic practices during the Classic period. Beyond meeting basic subsistence needs, agricultural production in multiple areas permitted surpluses likely for the purposes of tribute, taxation, and marketing. More broadly, this research highlights the strengths of HDBSCAN to the archaeological study of settlement distributions when compared to more commonly applied methods of density-based cluster analysis. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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